Monthly Archives: January 2016

Update: It’s unclear whether the in-store purchase will trigger the coupon for an extra 25% back in Staples Rewards (this would have turned the deal into a $100 moneymaker instead of being free). If you don’t want to drive to the store and roll the dice, do the online version of this deal to save yourself time.

This deal can be done both in-store and online. If you go in-store, you can use Staples’ current promotion of 25% back in rewards to also get $100 in Staples Rewards; however, you will have to pay sales tax. Online, you can go through a portal like Splender to get 5% cash back, and some states (e.g. California) do not charge sales tax on software downloads. You can’t use the 25% back in Staples Rewards coupon on an online purchase, however.

Your total should be about $400, depending on tax. Paying with your Chase Ink Plus Card will result in earning around 2,000 UR points. You can also just use this as a small MS opportunity or as a way to work on a credit card signup bonus you have.

Yeah, I know, $0.10 is not free. Close enough. The rebate can also be submitted online as a Staples Easy Rebate.

In-Store (Boxed Version)

In-store, they will probably not have 10 copies of the software in stock. You can order them all at the kiosk and ship them to your house for free. Select that you want to Pay at the Register to use your 25% rewards coupon. You can also try to purchase the download version at the kiosk to try to avoid sales tax while still using the coupon.

Recently, I came across yet another post by a prominent blogger exhorting readers to pay their $89 annual fees to renew their Barclaycard Arrival Plus Mastercards. For most people, this is simply bad advice, and so I thought it appropriate to write a post here explaining what’s wrong with the card and what alternatives one should be using instead. If written properly, this post should also guarantee that Barclaycard will never want to do any business with me. Oh well. The truth hurts sometimes.

Quick Summary

The Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature card and the Citi Double Cash card both offer 2% cash back with no annual fee. If you have enough assets that you are willing to transfer to Bank of America or Merrill Edge, the BankAmericard Travel Rewards card is even better and offers 2.25% or 2.625% cash back for $50,000 or $100,000 in assets, respectively.

Also, it’s perfectly fine if you want to get the Barclaycard Arrival Plus Mastercard for the $400 signup bonus – there’s just no reason to keep it beyond the first year.

Anyway, let’s dig into what’s wrong with the card, and why these other cards will be better for most people…

If you’ve been poking around this website, you’ve probably already seen the page Which Credit Card Should I Get?, but it’s been a work-in-progress, and I’ve finally finished it. Go ahead and take a look if you haven’t already.

For those of you who aren’t new to this game, I’ve also included a reference toward the bottom called Which Miles Should I Use? to show you the best miles to use for different regions of the world in economy, business, and first class.

And, lastly, a new page I’ve added today is called How To Save Miles By Knowing Your Geography. Many mileage programs just don’t agree what part of the world certain countries are in. American places the Canary Islands in their Europe region, even though they’re off the coast of Africa, where United considers them to be. This makes awards there considerably cheaper with American than with United. On that page, I list the discrepancies I’ve found so far, and I’ll continue to update it as I add more mileage programs to this website.